Eraser dusts
by Wintry Leen
Summary: He says I love you through his sketches. InoSai. Oneshot. AU. #39


**a/n:** First prompt for this was _eeh nich's_ "He Calls Me Beautiful" and then _rainyrhapsody's_ "The Black and White Boy." Special thanks to eeh nich, rainyrhapsody, and fanofthisfiction for expressing their support for my InoSai projects. This is the first of the two or three.

I was supposed to work on my one-shots this holiday season but life has a way of messing up my writing schedule every friggin' time.

I admit that this fic may be a bit hard to follow because I was trying to be experimental while laboriously getting over a huge writer's block.

The title is a lovely image first used by a friend of mine in her poetry. Credits to her!

* * *

 _Eraser dusts_

He's just someone with a pen and a sketch pad, seated in the corner of a classroom, sometimes staring outside the window, looking for a subject worthy sketching although his charcoal eyes, most of the time, are trained on the girl sitting three rows away from him, surrounded by boys and girls alike, her powder blue eyes always shining, her melodious laugh the only reason why his hand moves fluidly across the page, her every move he follows with his pen.

Her name is Ino, Yamanaka Ino, and sometimes, he wishes she knows his as well. But it doesn't matter. People avoid him, he remains silent, she doesn't look his way, and it doesn't matter. Even in his sketches, her eyes never meet his. But her smile lives between the pages of his pad, and he can only smile back.

...

He likes spending his time, alone, in the artist's lounge, a facility built for the students shunned for their otherworldly interests. A surprise indeed when she walks into the room, alone, and briefly explains she's had enough of the spotlight. She sits down on a table across his, wears her headset; he flips the sheets of his pad, begins sketching on a fresh one. Days go by with them sharing the same room, the comforting silence, and the furtive glances.

She asks him once why he's always so reserved, he doesn't answer; she snatches his pad from under his hands, and he tries to chase her. But she's seen them all so he stops, goes back to his seat. He hears her pad across the room. She silently sits beside him; he moves to stand.

She says she wants him to draw her in her wedding dress when the day comes. He tries to erase the image of her in a wedding dress in his mind until he realizes he doesn't need to imagine it. Sooner or later, he'll see it for himself, and it'll be part of his collection. Sooner or later, he'll see her smile between the pages, a smile for and with someone else, and he won't have the right to smile back

He doesn't give her a reply when she says thank you. It's a request he won't accept.

...

He buys another sketch pad, another pencil, looks for another muse, stops going to the lounge. In their shared class, the only time he gets to see her, he sleeps or sometimes tries his luck talking to another girl, bringing out his sketch pad, making an attempt to trace the curve of another jaw, the shape of those unfamiliar eyes, but always, always he tears the sheet off, ending up drawing something familiar, the only face that belongs in his precious sheets.

He sees her looking at him one time, and he just knows he has to stop drawing. He's lost control of his imagination; he has to get a firmer grip on the reality.

She's always been three rows away from him – and possibly, farther.

...

She calls out his name. He doesn't stop walking because she's not supposed to know his name, not supposed to bother with him. He's locked away his old sketch pad, has thrown the new one, and his fantasies are supposed to be over. She blocks his way; he still smiles at her as friendly, as real as possible, and politely excuses himself.

And suddenly, there's only the feel of her skin, his surrounding in a blurry motion, the sound of a slamming door. The artist's lounge is empty of people: it feels hauntingly familiar. His eyes focus on the face which filled the pages of his pad, but now flooding his senses.

She asks if something's wrong, and he also gives a cliché answer. She doesn't believe it and asks for the sketch pad, asks again if he has a new set of sketches, if she can see them, and if she's still his subject or has he found another muse, and if so, who is she, does she know her, is she in the same class as they are, is he friends with her, are they dating? And then she frowns and tells him she's getting jealous but doesn't know why, says sorry for springing it up on him suddenly, for acting oh-so-weird, for actually confessing to him when they don't know each other yet. But she looks him in the eyes, he looks away, and she insists: she likes him.

He doesn't answer, doesn't know what to feel, but he smiles and nods and politely excuses himself again and opens the door.

She's given him permission to draw her again, and that's enough.

...

He doesn't act.

She's finally there, by his side, ignoring the bewildered stares of their classmates. She doesn't speak of what has happened, but she latches onto his arm sometimes, brushes her hand across his, pecks him on the cheek in the most unexpected moments, and he knows she's waiting. But he doesn't act.

He's content, happy to be able to draw her again in secret. She stops asking about his sketches and starts asking about him. He tells her he lives alone, pays for his tuition through his little commission-business, manages his life fine, and doesn't tell her that he's an orphan and that the rest is useless history.

But one night, he finds her outside his apartment, sitting against the wall, drunk and cold. He picks her up, lays her down on his bed, and mutters I'm sorry, for everything, for not knowing what to do, for not knowing how to love properly.

He sleeps on the couch and when he wakes up, she's already gone.

...

Back to the usual.

He continues to draw her even when she doesn't know him.

He looks at her, again, and again, and he thinks as long as she smiles, it's okay.

Time is ticking, and he's running out of pages, and this will all be over soon.

...

He reluctantly tosses his hat in the air and immediately shoulders his way through the tearful crowd, his sketch pad he protectively tucked to his side. Her hair is of a common shade, but no one ever puts it in so high and regal a fashion as she does, and so he looks for her among the sea of faces he never bothers to know.

He dashes into the main building, finally finds her in that same lounge.

She turns to him, a pensive smile uncharacteristically placed on her face; he grips his precious pad more tightly. She tells him she's been waiting so he walks up to her, gives her what he needs to, and smiles a farewell.

On his way out, he hears the sound of ripping. A flash of anger in her eyes and – she flings out the bits of paper into the air. She says she doesn't want his gift, doesn't need that sketch book, doesn't like most especially his final sketch of her, that final sketch he's worked on so hard because it needs a lot of erasing. She says it's so dull and ugly and unrealistic.

Then he cuts in, mutters how he's always been watching her from behind, that she's never ugly, that he's drawn that sketch because he's always imagined touching her hair, that she's always been beautiful in his eyes even when she never turns around to look at him, that he's always, always -

She slaps him and for the first time, he sees her cry, and she cannot stop, says that she's always been looking at him, that he looks at her but doesn't see her, that she's always wanted to be someone more than his sketches because she can.

He looks at the scattered, ripped-up sketches of her, and realizes with an unforgiving sharpness that his sketches aren't her, that all this time he's been the one distancing himself, pushing her away.

...

He walks up to her, gives her what she's requested of him long ago. She unrolls the sheet, her glassy eyes looking into his eyes, and smiles.

He says she's the most beautiful bride he's ever seen and drawn.

 _ **...**_

 _ **Fin.**_

 _(I thank my 16-year-old sister for insisting on ambiguity and helping me craft the ending.)_

 _In the original document, the time marker/divider is asterisk (which FFN doesn't recognize) because I'd like to stress segments rather than rigid continuities. Just in case you'd like to view the story that way._


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